New menu fun/Shepherds Pie recipe

Almost from the moment we implemented the current menu in the restaurant we began discussions around ideas for the next one. There are few things more exciting than talking about food, planning dishes, coming up with ingredients and combinations, thinking about how logistics in service or prep will work, considering crockery, working out how to get the maximum flavour out of any one component (possibly just me...) and we have spent a fair bit of our quieter times in the kitchen doing just that over the past few months.

Talking is fun. Doing is way more fun. This week we have begun to put into practice the ideas and theories, putting physical form to them, figuring out the recipes and playing with presentation. We have now begun putting on some of the new dishes as weekend specials to give them a test drive.

First up in the batting order is a trio of lamb that was one of the very first concepts that we discussed. The idea behind making this a trio is pretty much fuelled by greed, we love lamb in all its forms so why settle for cooking it in just one way when we can do three!? This particular version includes a roasted rump served medium rare, a slow braised shoulder croquette, a mini shepherd’s pie, mint jelly, celeriac puree and spinach. A variety of textures, tastes and techniques combined to make a dish greater than the sum of its parts.

It’s not all about the ideas and the recipes though. As a busy restaurant serving anything up to 150 covers in a night it is equally important that we are able to replicate the dish time and time again regardless of how busy we are. This is why the opportunity of a test run is so useful. Any change to routine or procedure can cause a hold up, as can taking time to figure out how exactly to do something. In this particular case we had a pretty good idea of how we would cook the rump, shoulder and garnish but we ended up experimenting with three different ways of heating up the shepherd’s pie (including a particularly explosive, ill-advised foray into the microwave) before deciding on the best method. This is relatively easy with just one new dish, we are pretty well dialled in on the rest of the menu as it has been on for a few months now, an entire new menu in one go is a pretty big push though.

We are in an exciting period right now and I’m looking forward to next weekend and another new dish or two to play with

Shepherd’s Pie

This is our take on a classic. While we use it as part of a taster plate of lamb but it could easily be a meal in itself. The basic recipe has been around since Victorian times and is traditionally a quick an easy way of using up leftovers from the Sunday Roast. This version though is one to take your time over and the pie is a worthy goal in its own right.

If you’re not a fan of offal then don’t be put off by the kidney and liver, they melt in at the beginning and add richness and depth to the whole dish without being discernable in the finished pie.

For the Lamb Stock

-          5kg lamb bones

-          4 large onions

-          6 carrots

-          1 head celery

-          2 leeks

-          750ml red wine

For the mash

-          Potatoes

-          Double cream

For the filling

-          2kg lamb mince

-          2 lamb’s kidney

-          1 lamb’s liver

-          3 carrots

-          2 sticks celery

-          2 onions

-          4 cloves garlic

-          2 tbsps Tomato puree

-          500 ml red wine

-          Bouquet Garni consisting of rosemary, thyme, bay

·         Make the lamb stock the day before – roast the lamb bones at 160C for about 40mins. Also roast the veg off for about 20 mins. Reduce the red wine by 1/3 then put all together in a pot and cover with water. Bring up to just under a simmer (ie. a trembling rather than bubbling surface) and leave on overnight.

·         Pass the lamb stock through a fine sieve and then reduce by about a ½

·         For the pie, first blanch the mince by covering in cold water and bringing up to the boil then taking off and draining. This will render off some of the fat and make the end result less greasy (we omitted this stage first time around and ended up warming the mix and hanging it in a muslin bag to drain off excess fat).

·         Sear the mince in a hot pan large enough to hold all of the filling in batches and remove to hold until later, lower the temperature on the pan.

·         Dice all of the veg (it’s worth taking some time over this, particularly with the carrots as they will show in the final result) and sweat them off.

·         Trim the liver and kidney and chop in a food processor. Add this to the vegetables with the tomato puree and cook off.

·         Add back in the seared mince and the red wine, reduce until nearly all absorbed then add half of the stock and the bouquet garni.

·         Cook slowly over several hours until sauce has reduced to almost nothing. Season with salt, pepper and a dash of balsamic vinegar.

·         While the filling is cooking reduce the rest of the stock to about half again.

·         Bake the potatoes on a baking tray with lots of salt until cooked through. Push through a drum sieve (or use a potato ricer) and beat in cream and seasoning until taste and consistency is correct.

·         To construct the pie – stir in some of the reduced stock to the hot pie mix to loosen it up and put into the pie dish. Top with hot mashed potato and place under a grill until browned.

Dorset Seafood Festival 2011 (plus John Dory with Sauce Vierge)

Visited on a sunny weekend in July, Weymouth has the feel of a proper, old fashioned British seaside town. Deckchairs, Punch and Judy, Penny Arcades, sun, sea and sand, Weymouth has it all. The only thing needed to complete the picture is the traditional fish and chips but this particular weekend we could go one better than this old favourite with the fourth annual Dorset Seafood Festival.

We kick off with a breakfast of Aussie style Scallop and King Prawn kebabs from the South West Sushi stand and a glass of champagne from main sponsors Pommery and get the day off to a good start.

This is followed up with more scallops, this time on a stick with chorizo from Weymouth based Perry’s restaurant. While always a good pairing, chucking scallops down your throat left right and centre enables you to be a little bit picky and they weren’t quite as fresh and plump as the first lot. There is undoubtedly something magical though about the combination of fish, pork, sun and outdoor cooking.

OK. This could go on a bit so I’ll summarise. There was bbq’d lobster, oysters, crab sandwiches, fish cakes, Chilean wine, New Zealand wine, Ringwood beer, no razor clams (they’d sold out – I was gutted) and a fair bit of sunburn if I’m honest. Also, a fair few dishes we didn’t even try, the day could have turned out very expensive if I had eaten everything I fancied.

Now and then we took a break from eating and drinking to stand still and watch one of the many demonstrations taking place throughout the weekend, a couple of highlights were:

 Duncan Lucas from Passionate About Fish gave a demonstration of virtuoso fish filleting, making it look ridiculously simple and finished by deboning a whole plaice, creating a ‘pocket’ that he filled with water and held above his head in just 60 seconds (a challenge in aid of the Fishermen’s Mission)!

River Cottage’s John Wright gave a frankly hilarious, rambling talk that was vaguely about foraging seaweed with demonstrations of a lavabread cake with bacon and oatmeal and a carageen pannacotta using the seaweed as a substitute for gelatine. Later on Richard Bertinet cooked mussels and mackerel. Sadly, unable to be in more than one place at once and spend the entire weekend in Weymouth, we missed Matt Follas, Shaun Rankin, Nigel Bloxham and Mark Hix amongst others but hey, there’s always next year!

Pan Fried John Dory with Crushed New Potatoes and a Sauce Vierge

While not from the seafood festival as such, John Dory is a great fish. It’s ugly as hell but does taste good. As a weekend special recently we presented it with crushed new potatoes and a tarragon sauce vierge for a simple but classic summer dish.

John Dory – 1 fillet per person

For the Sauce Vierge

1 Finely diced shallot

2 Tomatoes – deseeded and finely diced

Olive oil

A small bunch Tarragon chopped

A few Basil leaves chopped

For the crushed new potatoes

New potatoes

Butter

Parsley

Chives

-          Steam the new potatoes until soft then crush in your hand

-          Sweat down the shallot, when soft add the tomato and herbs and warm through.

-          Top up the sauce with olive oil to give a loose consistency and season with salt, pepper and lemon juice, keep warm

-          In a sauce pan warm the potatoes through with plenty of butter and salt until hot and soft and stir through the herbs

-          Cut the John Dory fillet in half lengthwise to give two long, thin fillets. Season and oil

-          Fry skin side down in a hot pan, flip when cooked a third of the way up and finish with a couple of cubes of cold butter and lemon juice

-          Serve with buttered spinach

Some fresh Wild Seabass

Seabass is a fantastic ingredient at any time but we were lucky enough recently to get some ultra fresh wild fish in the restaurant. It’s a shame with anything this good to do too much to it and indeed this recipe keeps things fairly simple, complementing the fish and letting it sing as the star of the dish.

                Not only delicious, Seabass also rates well in terms of sustainability. Fish caught wild locally to us here in the UK rates as a ‘2’ (“still a good choice”) on the Marine Conservation Society’s scale of 1-5. The MCS website is well worth checking out at www.fishonline.org. Here you can search on pretty much any fish and get a relatively simple run down on the pros and cons from a sustainability perspective. From there you can dig deeper, really get underneath the issue and gain an understanding of the many and complex issues surrounding the sustainability of our fish stocks.

                While you are on the subject, why not head over to www.fishfight.net for a chance to make a difference above and beyond your shopping choices. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has certainly brought a lot of publicity to the subject through his TV programmes and the ‘fight’ continues through this site and his visits to supermarkets, fishermen and the European Parliament.

Seabass with Crispy Potato, Bacon and Fennel Cress Salad

Seabass

Pancetta

New potatoes

Samphire

Nori dried seaweed

Fennel Cress

Olive oil

1.       Make a seaweed dressing by shredding the nori sheets and putting them into a sieve, pour boiling water over them and through the sieve. Put the cooked, wet sheets into a blender and blend with enough olive oil to give a pourable consistency.

2.       Steam the potatoes until cooking but still firm, slice lengthways to give approx two 1cm thick slices per potato.

3.       Dice the pancetta to give 1cm cubes, place in a pan of cold water and bring to the boil. Once boiling, drain the pancetta, spread on a baking sheet and cook for 15 minutes in a pre-heated oven at 160C

4.       Pin bone and portion the Seabass, making a couple of slashes in the skin.

To serve:

1.       In a hot pan, fry the potato slices in some clarified butter until crisp and browned, add the pancetta and toss to coat.

2.       Season and oil the fish before pan frying.

3.       Add the samphire to the bacon and potato mix and toss together until just wilted. Season the mix if required.

4.       Serve in a warm bowl, placing the fish on top of the mix, surrounded by the fennel cress with a drizzle of the seaweed dressing.

First Barbecue of the Year

After having lived in rented places for the past 15 odd years we bought our first house last year and the opportunity to put our own stamp on our home means that I have been slightly DIY crazy recently. I have been working on various projects that I have always wanted to have a crack at but was never able to. One of these is the building of a brick barbecue.

Put in context, I am pretty much entirely useless at anything remotely practical and had never laid a brick in my life. No problems though, the internet has the answer to everything! I read through various instructions until I thought I could have a reasonable stab.

I have learnt many things from this building project, chief amongst which is that I really, really, really hate bricklaying! Most projects that I have tried in the past have had some redeeming feature but I came out of the three days hard, boring, hot and sweaty labour with my back, legs and arms aching for days afterwards. I would love to say that I have been left with a masterpiece in masonry but in truth what I have is wonky, full of ‘character’ and reminiscent of the architecture of ancient Rome (took more than a day to build, is basically a ruin and I fully intend to fiddle while it burns. Sausages that is).

Having put all the work in now it seems only appropriate to get as much use out of it as possible and so a midweek celebration in the form of an impromptu outdoor dinner is the only way to go.

Barbecue Ribs & Marinated Chicken

Bit of a crazy, mis-match of a meal this but then that’s what barbecues are supposed to be like isn’t it? The barbecue sauce used on the ribs is pretty much generic and will work on whatever meat you want it to (or veg I guess but if you’re only interested in cooking veg on the Barbie then you may be missing the point). Serve with various salads, bread, cold beer, wine and whatever takes your fancy...

Braised Ribs

1x Rack of pork ribs

Chicken Stock

Mirepoix (Onion, carrot, celery, leek etc chopped up)

Put the lot in a dish big and deep enough to enable you to cover the ribs with the stock. Cover with foil and put into a 150C oven for 2 ½ to 3 hours.

Barbecue Sauce

4 tbsp tomato ketchup

330ml (ie. a can) Cola

1 tsp cayenne pepper

2 tsp Chinese 5 spice

1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 cloves garlic, chopped

Thumb size piece ginger, chopped

1 tbsp soy sauce

Put all into a pan and reduce by about a ½

Barbecue Ribs

As the braised ribs are cooling, paint them with the barbecue sauce a few times over. Put them onto a hot barbecue grill, continue painting with warm sauce until suitably caramelised, sticky and ready to eat.

Marinated Chicken

1 whole chicken

½ bunch thyme

3 cloves garlic, chopped

Juice of 1 lemon

½ glass white wine

Black pepper

Split the chicken into 10 pieces (2x thighs, legs, wings and 4x ½ breast pieces).Put all ingredients into a vac-pac bag and seal. Leave for an hour or so and then put into a pan of not quite simmering water for 30-40 mins. This will work perfectly well marinated traditionally for longer and then poaching or steaming the chicken or using a well sealed freezer bag in a pan of water. When cooked remove the chicken and chill.

Later on season and finish the chicken pieces on a hot barbecue until the skin is crispy and all pieces suitably brown.

Herb Bulgur Wheat

250g Bulgur Wheat

1x bunch flat leaf parsley

1x bunch coriander

Extra virgin olive oil

Cover the bulgur wheat in boiling water - just over twice as much, allow to absorb until cooked, sieve off any excess. While it’s cooking blitz the herbs with the oil, mix with the bulgur wheat while still warm and season to taste.

- Alan